The existence of governing bodies in public schools can be traced back to the 1950's;
when the apartheid regime was established. They (governing bodies) were introduced
as a way of steering Africans in the development of their own communities. These
governing bodies also had responsibilities rather than authority. Their powers were
limited in such a way that individual members were held "personally responsible for
disapproved actions to which they may have voted, such as employing and paying a
teacher or expending funds before the Secretary's approval has been obtained"
(Jefferson, 1973: 157).
This is to say that governing bodies are not new to the history of South African schools.
The newly established governing bodies are not totally different to the ones described
above, in that, the newly established governing bodies also have responsibilities rather
than authority. For example, the governing body may not be allowed to pay for services
to the school without the approval of the HOD (Potgieter, Visser, Van der Bank, Mothata
& Squelch, 1997: 32).
The purpose of this research project is to try and find the criteria which are being used
to elect members of the governing body in public schools for each of the elected
categories except non-educators. The researcher decided to omit non-educators in this
research because not all school governing bodies have non-educators as members.

en_US

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en

en_US

dc.subject

School boards.

en_US

dc.subject

School administrators - South Africa - Selection and appointment

en_US

dc.title

An evaluation of the criteria used to elect members of the governing body in public schools